Grenville

Grenville, GEORGE, the English statesman who passed the Stamp Act which first drove the American colonies to resistance, was born on 14th October 1712. He was younger brother to Richard Grenville, Earl Temple (q.v.), and brother-in-law of the Earl of Chatham. He entered parliament in 1741, and from 1744 to 1762 filled several government offices. In 1757 he introduced a bill for the regulation of the payment of the navy. In 1762 he became Secretary of State, and then First Lord of the Admiralty; and in the following year he succeeded Lord Bute as prime-minister, uniting in himself the offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury. The most prominent facts of his administration were the prosecution of Wilkes and the passing of the American Stamp Act. He resigned the premiership in 1765, and died 13th November 1770. Although an honest and honourable man, his overleaping ambition, want of tact, and imperious nature made him a highly unpopular minister. See the Grenville Papers, edited by W. J. Smith (4 vols. 1852-53).